1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved communications system and in particular to a method and apparatus for improved call forwarding in a telecommunication system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing caller identification information of a called number to a forward-to telephone device terminating a call.
2. Description of Related Art
A well known signaling service available in many telecommunication systems is call forwarding. Call forwarding is a local area switching service that allows an in-coming call to be routed to another location. Many central offices and private branch exchanges feature various call forwarding services. Another well-known and popular local area switching service is caller identification (caller ID). Caller ID is a service where information of a calling party is sent to the terminating number. In the public switched telephone network, caller ID information is sent to the terminating, or called, party between the first and second ring signals of an incoming call.
When a subscriber has both call-forwarding and caller ID enabled, the calling number of the originating, or calling, device is forwarded with call setup data and communicated to the forward-to telephone device. Accordingly, the subscriber receiving a forwarded call receives the caller ID information of the calling party at the forward-to telephone device where the call is directed.
Often times, a subscriber will have incoming calls that are directed to multiple phone numbers forwarded to another location. For instance, a subscriber may have incoming calls to his home phone and his work phone forwarded to his cell phone. If caller ID is enabled, the subscriber will receive the caller ID information of the originating device at the subscriber's cell phone when calls are forwarded from either the home or office number. In such a situation, it is often desirable to know to which telephone device a forwarded call was originally directed. For example, when receiving a forwarded call, the subscriber may want to accept any call being forwarded from the work phone but may only want to accept calls forwarded from the home phone from callers whose caller ID information the subscriber recognizes. In current implementations of call forwarding, the subscriber is unable to discern any information regarding the originally called number. Thus, for example, when an incoming call is directed to the forward-to number and the subscriber does not recognize the caller ID information, the subscriber has no way of knowing if the incoming call was directed to the home phone or the office phone.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method, apparatus, and computer instructions for supplying caller ID information of a called telephone device to a forward-to telephone device as a call forwarding service feature. It would be additionally advantageous to forward caller ID information regarding a call originating telephone device and the called telephone device to a forward-to telephone device. It would still be further advantageous to provide caller ID information of a call originating telephone device and a called telephone device to a forward-to telephone device in a manner that enables display of caller ID information of both the call originating telephone device and the called telephone device without modification of existing caller ID equipment.